People who are mentally ill are often times kept in a confined cell, room, or building and can be at risk of being injured by others or purposefully injuring themselves. Sometimes, incarcerated prisoners attempt suicide. The same is also true for patients in a psychiatric ward or hospital. The most common method of suicide attempted is strangulation by hanging. A second method of suicide attempted is cutting one's wrists. Those individuals who are believed to be a threat to themselves are usually placed on a suicide watch. This means that the individual must be at least periodically checked and preferably continuously checked to prevent the individual from committing suicide.
The requirement that the individual be continually observed results in a huge amount of expended manpower. However, if the individual is only checked or observed periodically, the individual may commit suicide between the checks or observations. In a prison situation, sudden deaths of agitated inmates in officer custody provoke allegations of misconduct by other inmates and, occasionally, unnecessary force TASER deployment. Therefore a system or method is needed that is cost-efficient and that can permit continuous monitoring of at-risk individuals, can detect an emergency situation (for example,when a person attempts to commit suicide), that sends a signal to supervising personnel, and that enables the personnel to reduce the likelihood of death and/or serious injury.